The present disclosure relates generally to maintenance of aircraft, and more particularly to systems and methods for discovering when and how often airline operators (“carriers”) perform aircraft heavy maintenance events.
When a carrier takes a delivery of an aircraft, the carrier is incentivized to operate the aircraft as much as possible to generate maximum revenues. Therefore the carrier keeps the aircraft's monthly usage at a relatively high level unless the carrier must take the aircraft out of service for heavy maintenance events (e.g., C and D checks). Heavy maintenance events keep aircraft out of service for two weeks or more.
Aircraft manufactures generally recommend heavy maintenance intervals to carriers. However carriers may modify the recommendations with the approval of their aviation authority. Moreover, carriers may change the heavy maintenance intervals due to airworthiness directives (AD) from aviation authorities over the life of their aircraft. Accordingly, maintenance intervals may vary from carrier to carrier and from one aircraft model to another aircraft model.
In addition, different carriers may use different indicators or metrics to determine when a maintenance event should be performed. For example, a first carrier may use a cumulative number of flight hours since a previous maintenance event as an indicator of when the next maintenance event should take place. A second carrier may use a number of flight cycles as an indicator, and a third carrier may use a total amount of time that has elapsed since the last maintenance event. Furthermore, a single carrier may use different types of indicators for different aircraft within the carrier's fleet. Generally, however, once a carrier has determined what indicator to use for a type of aircraft within the carrier's fleet, the carrier applies the indicator on all aircraft of the same type in its fleet.
Given the variations in how different carriers track and schedule aircraft maintenance events, it is challenging for a maintenance, repair, and overhaul provider (“MRO”) to predict maintenance events and obtain replacement aircraft components in preparation for the maintenance events. Accordingly, systems and methods that facilitate predicting when such maintenance events will occur are desired.